THIS invention relates to a method and reader system for reading a mechanically variable display, particularly those provided with a meter, as well as to a metering system and a meter.
Conventional mechanical, or in certain instances electro-mechanical, meters, for example, odometers or trip meters in vehicles, and commodity meters for the measurement of commodities such as water or electricity, often have mechanically variable displays which require human operators to physically inspect them in order to obtain readings or measurements therefrom. These mechanical displays typically comprise a plurality of interconnected rotatable indicator wheels displaying numeric or alphanumeric data corresponding to the accumulated use of the commodity in question. For commodities in particular, inspection of these meters to obtain readings or measurements may be undesirably time-consuming and any billing done on these readings or measurements could be unreliable. Automated metering systems have been devised but are usually expensive and complicated, as well as being of somewhat limited use.
An example of an automated system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,349,588. However, this involves camera technology and OCR using pattern recognition techniques. The main disadvantage of this system is the complexity of the hardware and software associated with pattern recognition resulting in poor accuracy due, for example, when the numbers of a meter are in transition and therefore hidden or obscured from the camera vision. It is an object of the invention to address the disadvantages and problems associated with the prior art.